Method in Metaphysics (Aquinas Lecture 15)

87 Pages·1950·0.28 MB·English

by  Robert J. Henle

Method in Metaphysics Aquinas Lecture ;
title:
1950
author: Henle, R. J.
publisher: Marquette University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0874621151
print isbn13: 9780874621150
ebook isbn13: 9780585141244
language: English
subject Metaphysics.
publication date: 1951
lcc: BD111.H4 1951eb
ddc: 110
subject: Metaphysics.
Page i
Method in Metaphysics
The Aquinas Lecture-15
Under the Auspices of the Aristotelian Society of Marquette
University
By Robert J. Henle, S.J. A.B., A.M., Ph.L., S.T.L.
MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PRESS
MILWAUKEE
Page ii
Nihil Obstat
Francis Wade, S.J., censor deputatus
Milwaukiae, die 8 mensis Januarii, 1951
Imprimatur
Moyses E. Kiley
Archiepiscopus Milwaukiensis Milwaukiae
die 12 mensis Januarii, 1951
Imprimi Potest
Daniel H. Conway, S.J.
Praepositus Provincialis
Provinciae Missourianae
die 25 mensis Novembris, 1950
Second Printing, 1980
© Copyright 1980
Marquette University
ISBN 0-87462-115-1
Page iii
Prefatory
The Aristotelian Society of Marquette University each year invites a
scholar to deliver a lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Customarily delivered on the Sunday nearest March 7, the feast-day
of the Society's patron saint, these lectures are called the Aquinas
lectures.
In 1950 the Society had the pleasure of recording the lecture of the
Reverend Robert J. Henle, S.J.
Father Henle was born Sept. 12, 1909 at Muscatine, Iowa. He
received the A.B. degree in 1931; A.M. in 1932; the Licentiate in
Philosophy in 1935, all from St. Louis University; the Licentiate in
Sacred Theology, St. Mary's College, Kansas, in 1941. He did
advanced studies at St. Stanislaus Novitiate, Cleveland, in 1941-42
and at the University of Toronto 1942-43 and 1944-45.
Page iv
He was instructor in classics, St. Louis University High School, 1935-
37; instructor in education, Campion Summer School, Prairie du
Chein, Wis., 1937-41; instructor in philosophy, St. Louis University
1943-47; and has been assistant professor of philosophy since 1947.
He has been dean of the School of Philosophy and Science, St. Louis
University, since 1943, and dean of the Graduate School since 1950.
Father Henle is a member of the American Catholic Philosophical
Association and was chairman of the committee on research of that
organization 1949-50. He is also a member of the American
Philosophical Society and is president of the Missouri State
Philosophical Association 1950-51.
He was editor of The Modern Schoolman 1945-50. Among the books
he has written are: A Latin Grammer for High Schools, 1937, revised
edition, 1939; First Year Latin, 1937, revised edition, 1939; Second
Year Latin, 1938, revised edition,
Page v
1939; Third Year Latin, 1940; Fourth Year Latin, 1942. He is a
contributor to The Modern Schoolman, The Historical Bulletin, The
Classical Bulletin, America, Thought, The Catholic World, Jesuit
Educational Quarterly, Bulletin of the National Catholic Educational
Association.
To the list of his writings the Aristotelian Society has the honor of
adding Method in Metaphysics.
Page 1
Method in Metaphysics
Some twenty-two years ago, the eminent Pere Marechal opened a
series of lectures at the University of Louvain in which he intended to
deal with the problems of the transcendental value of metaphysics.
1 The crux of the problem he crystallized in what he called the
question of the gate to metaphysics, that is to say, the passage from
sense knowledge to metaphysical knowledge strictly so-called. It is
with this problem that I am here concerned. I do not intend to deal
directly with the question of the transcendental applications of
metaphysics but rather with the crucial issue of its origin in human
knowledge from sense experience.
I do not intend to give either a complete and total explanation or one
that is
Page 2
entirely new. Much of what I will say has already been discovered and
said by those before me, notably by the patron of these lectures,
Thomas Aquinas. But above all I am fearful of falling into the fallacy
which I have called the fallacy of "only." It is a dangerous temptation
to which most philosophers yield at some point or other, to mistake
some positive discovery or explanation for a total explanationto say,
for example, that because they have found one method of knowledge
which is valid and intelligible, it is the only method of knowledge.
Whenever we insert an "only" in a statement it becomes really two
statements, one positive and the other negative. If we say, for
example, "the only way to travel from Saint Louis to Milwaukee is by
train," we are saying first that we can travel from Saint Louis to
Milwaukee by train, which is obviously true, and secondly, that there
is no other way we can travel from Saint Louis to Milwaukee, which
is obviously false.
Page 3
Moreover, while it is quite possible to prove the positive element in
such a composite statement it is extremely difficult to prove a negative
statement which almost has the force of a universal exclusion. This is
the error of those who say, for example, that only the scientific
method can yield valid knowledge or that only one type of science is
true science.
Nor will I pretend to give an explanation which will constitute a
"system" in the meaning which that term has acquired in modern
thought. A system pretends to be complete and closed, and to be
complete and closed a body of thought must have achieved an
exhaustive transcription of its object into intelligible expression. For
the philosopher whose object is the intelligibility of the whole of the
real such a pretension would be equivalent to the deification of his
own mind. Consequently any philosophical explanation, however
sound and certain its positive elements may be, must remain open to
deepening
Page 4
insight and the advancing conquest of reality. I hope that I shall be
able to indicate at least how those discoveries and formulations which
constitute the definitive contribution of historical Thomism to
philosophy will remain within the framework of my proposed
explanation.
I shall try therefore to avoid fallacious exclusion as well as specious
and oversimplified completeness. While it is true that certain basic
characters run through all our knowledge, there is, within the
complexity of this knowledge, an almost endless variety of
differences. The human mind has rich resources and a fecund creative
power from which arise the astonishing devices and meansthe
metaphors, theories, abstractions, correlations, concepts, constructs,
and so forthby which it attempts to understand and control reality. A
vast field of investigation lies open here which the Thomists have
perhaps cultivated with too little effort. It may be that our failure here
explains in